There were more variables than just Trump.

COVID and all the conditions it created.

You want the real answer?

Inertia.

Think about the scene in Fight Club where the homework is to go out and start a fight. It isn’t easy. Most people have never hit another person their entire lives. Men who punch walls or tear their shirts off to throw down with someone over perceived offenses are not the normal. That’s tail of the bell curve behavior. If it wasn’t, people would be fighting in parking lots everywhere you go.

The inertia of most peoples lives is to avoid conflict. This is why only a handful of people in any building you happen to be standing in are suited to leadership roles.

Now, if you can get one of those guys in the right conditions to stir up a mob hive mind then the game changes. Until then, most people will be propelled forward by inertia and conflict avoidance.

Redo the high school algebra curriculum. Instead of solving for trains meeting, make it fists and nazis. The students would likely be way more engaged in learning.

Except trump would probably do a little confused rooster dance (iykyk, just picture anxious circling to Benny Hill theme music) and say nothing.

We felt it last year. A building up of something. A sense of impending doom. Feelings of grim.

Things are worse especially with Trump making noises about using the American military to take resources. I don’t know who put the Panama canal and Greenland into his head but here we are. He is a guy who would do it too. Making us axis and not ally this go. That’s grim.

Pick and choose your outlets but don’t stick your head in the sand.

Your disposable income, such as it is, belongs to them. That’s why.

Draining working class with bug bites. Every sub is another swarm of insects in need of blood. You’re not supposed to notice.

Ok. Don’t eat the watches.

This lack of attention is simply a marker of how media is consumed. They sorta caught a smell and made up a story to source that smell without ever seeing what’s cooking. Half an idea with the blanks filled in by maybe and sounds right. A friend expresses an opinion that doesn’t disagree with any of it so that’s ran with like it’s fact. Headlines only, no actual reading to fact check. And here we are.

This is also how elections work.

He buys shit and he larps. That’s Elon.

The issue is his latest acquisition is Donald J. Trump

I never thought there was anything wrong with the first narrations. I hope those aren’t gone for good.

I’m curious enough to try this.

Audiobooks are made or broken by the quality of the narration. It’s not enough to simply narrate written word, the narrator has to “act” as well. Given the quality of other arts engaged by AI I’m going into this skeptical.

I haunt estate auctions wherever I go. Physical media in the form of CDs and LPs is at a prime. Unless it’s old classical or country the prices skyrocket. The LP could be scratched to hell, they only ever show the sleeves in pics, but it doesn’t matter.

Physical media is at a premium. LPs used to be a dollar or so each 5 years ago. Sometimes even 4 for a dollar. Now, minimum $5 each to start. Unless it’s country or classical.

You could also argue that it’s a very American roots level of civil disobedience that harkens back to the 1770s. So it’s hard for them on multiple levels.